Wow. Now this is a story I have to share. Wall o' text approaching; brace yourselves.

I've been working on building a nice little home for myself today. Dug it out of the side of a cliff, made one wall out of solid glass and panelled the rest with wood and cobblestone. Very rustic, very pleasant. Very satisfying to build, but it's a long way from my spawn point, which I've long since lost.

I finished most of the building work about an hour and a half ago. The secret passageway to the outside still needs some work on it, but I was bored of cutting down trees so I decided to take the (in-game) day off and go on an adventure.

Normally when I'm travelling to new places I place a string of torches to guide me home, but it didn't really seem worth it this time. I was only going to see what was over the next hill; all I had to do was remember which direction I was travelling and turn a full 180 when the sun reached its zenith.

But then I saw The Mountain.

It was huge. It stretched out far beyond the draw distance, into the clouds. It was practically begging me to climb it. So I did, and I planted a sign at the top to show Nature just how well it had been conquered. On the way down I even found a fantastic little valley, absolutely invisible except from above, with flowers and a single tree growing in this isolated mountain meadow. It was like Shangri-La. So I had to go and have a look.

And then I realised I didn't know where I was.

"No problem", thought I, "My house is right on the edge of the sea. All I have to do is follow the coast and I'll get there eventually. It can't be that far."

So I picked a direction and started following the coast. Now I was leaving a trail of torches. Getting lost this time seemed an unthinkably horrible option, but it wasn't yet midday. I was convinced I'd make it back to home base before nightfall.

But I didn't. I found myself in totally unfamiliar territory, just as night was falling. And I was running out of torches. Seeing a group of mobs up ahead, I ran for the nearest cliffside and dug a hole for myself to hide in. I'd left myself a tiny hole to stare out of, for psychological reasons as much as anything, and from where I hid I could just about see one of my torches, burning in the distance. My nightlight.

I could hear the monsters all night. They knew where I was, and they were all around me. They couldn't get to me and I couldn't see them. It was like having the entire population of Hell under your bed: ****ing frightening.

The next morning I dug my way out and ran for it. Only a spider had survived the sun's rays; my slowly-degrading iron sword made short work of it, but I couldn't kill many more mobs before it wore out. Nothing to do, though, but to keep pressing forwards.

I completely ran out of torches about half-way through the second day. Lacking anything else to prove I'd here, I started leaving stone steps behind me so I'd at least be able to see something by daylight. By chance, I stumbled upon a natural cave on a tiny peninsula, and knew it was my only hope. I ran blindly into the darkness, and- yes! At the end of the tunnel I could just make out a vein of coal. More torches! I felt like a god.

Night fell again, and still I didn't recognise my surroundings. I started swimming out further and further from the coast, hoping to find shortcuts around the bays and awkward cliffs surrounding me. I'd scaled that mountain well over an hour ago. Where in all hell was my house?

Around midnight, I saw light up ahead. My heart sank. I'd come round in a complete circle. I was hopelessly, irretrievably lost.

No, hang on a minute. I'd stayed on the coastline all the way, at sea level. I hadn't placed any torches up that high. Could it be...? Yes! It was the edge of one of my old beacon trails, and it would lead me straight to one of my old safe houses, deep inside a mountain. It was pretty basic- I'd long since moved all the tools and chests to home base- but I didn't care. It had doors. I was so happy I slaughtered a cow on the spot in celebration.

But... well. This game may have low-fi graphics, but its sound effects are terrifying. As I danced around the cow's dead corpse, I heard a TWANG! to my left. Another one, almost immediately, to my right. I might have possibly screamed out loud at this point, not really realising what was going on. I hesitated for an unforgiveable moment as I tried to place what the sound was.

Oh, yeah. Someone was shooting arrows at me.

I ran like buggery in what looked like the right direction. Another arrow TWANGed into the ground behind me. Found the safehouse. Slammed the door behind me. Didn't dare look around to see if I'd been followed.

There are things outside, and I'm not moving until they've been burned away by the sun's purifying light.

Dammit, Sy. -Dammit-. I had -zero- interest in this, so I was going to be able to go on without trying it. But nooo you just -had- to post an awesome Minecraft story and now I have to try it. You're going to Hell for this.

So I hate those green exploding guys. I'm sure they have some proper name, but I don't know it. So for the time being I'll stick to the name I chose, "Oh God no get back get back nooooo".

Also constantly grow more depressed that I can't hear sound during this free weekend due to the wonky server issues something about new players whatever it is it depresses me.

So I actually started over-ish. I still have my first world, but now I've got a second one. That's because in my first world, I was carefully securing the entirety of the area under my home into a large criss-cross web of tunnels, with access points all over the place so I would always be close to home. Didn't work out too well. I accidentally unleashed a constantly-spawning zombie horde - can't get to their spawning thing, don't know if I'm even able to do anything to it if I can, so they've infested my criss-cross go-anywhere tunnels so I can't really use them. If, some day, I decide to go back and either try to end the zombie horde or seal them off and journey elsewhere, that option is still open to me, but for now, Take 2.

Eh, I'm probably just going to end up sticking with my new file, it's working out a lot better so far, what with me having some idea of what I was doing. First world, I decided to leave gaps in my home for windows, so as I could see outside. Didn't take into account that it would let monsters see inside, so I spent my nights with all sorts of beasts crowded around my windows, and too many of them tended to stick around despite the sun. Eventually managed to fix it, though, several explosions later.

Which reminds me, the first time one was bouncing outside my window, I had the -brilliant- idea to open my door to get a better look. Goodbye, front of home, hello, respawn point. Oh, and there was one time, I was oot and aboot working on expanding my tunnel system. I came across a part where I was technically outside, but in like, a chasm, yes? And there was a monster up above. So I was kinda scared, but it was close to daytime, so I just froze and watched it for any movement towards me at which point I would dash. Aaaand a Jeepers Creepers suddenly fell down from above and I exploded.